I just saw "Inside Llewyn Davis" and I don't get it. Will someone please explain this movie to me? Is there really anything going on here or is this just another instance of the Coens goofing on cinastes?

P.S. I am 64 years old and well familiar with the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 60s. I also know about the real-life people upon whom the characters were based. And I know that the movie was sort of inspired by Dave van Ronk's autobiography. I still don't get it.

And now thisother parallel,this symmetryinsidefor everythingon the outside,the writer in winterat his desk,caught in the light,beneath the window,bringing togetherthe last and the first,the middle and the edge,the near and the far,and all the troubled livescalling for the one lineand the one life,for creation come togetherin a centralunspoken wish,to be heldand made onelikea god’s blessingout of nowhere,the pen put downso the open palm,warm and full,can touch a woundthat heals them all.

@Roughcoat - Just saw it as well. Part of it is a pure goof on modern screenwriting conventions - in particular, the book, "Save The Cat." It's also about the tension between authenticity, entertainment, and commercial success. (Maybe in film making as well as music, given that they are made a movie with a deliberately unlikable protagonist who doesn't evolve. He isn't redeemed or degraded. He just stays an asshole.)

I think the connection to Van Ronk is an act of charity. They didn't use his book in any important way, but they still funneled some money to his heirs.

Some people become enraged at the suggestion things happen for a reason.

They make "posters" or graphics on the computer (the royal "the"?) that say Everything happens for a reason? SLAP! And then some throwaway joke.

But the point is contained within the slapping reaction to the action of conveying the attitude everything happens for a reason. It is a self-refuting graphic if your theory is things happen without reason(s).

Let's start with the obvious. It's not a Hyatt and almost certainly not a Marriott. It's been recently redone in the neo-engergy conservation style. The pallet is late-ought mono with just a hint of acidic hued irony. The starkly scalloped lighting plan bespeaks a recent architecture grad from a southern public university as does the utilitarian (at best) treatment of the door jambs.

I'm going to say it's one of those new "Hey, we're not that uncool" Holiday Inns in southern Indiana or maybe northern Kentucky.

The big mom fad had been food. This food, that food, special diets, etc.

The new fad that's coming on fast is "essential oil." Actually oils. They're mentioned all the time in the social media mom chatter. "Put this on the baby's feet," "Put this in the child's bath," "Put this in a diffuser." Many comments open with, "I don't know if you do essential oils or not, but..."